- 43 



\ 2A Si^aOr^ M-mL. j3^s^ >fe*n 






DESIGNS OF THE SLAVE POWER, 



SPEECH 



OF 



v^' 



HON. EEUBEN E. FENTON 



OF NEW YORK 



BELIYERED IN THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



V 7 .'V FEBRUARY 24, 1858. 






WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLANCHARD, PRINTERS. 

1858. 



SPEECH OF MR. FENTOX. 



Mr. Chairman : A little over four years ago, it was pro- 
posed in tlie national councils to destroy the line limiting 
the northward tread of Slavery, and inaugurate measures of 
paciiication upon the issues growing out of the Slavery ques- 
tion, which had, at intervals, all along our country's history, 
distracted its peace and embittered its councils, it was said 
that this measure of abrogation was not only necessar}' to 
carry out the principles of non-intervention and popular 
sovereignt}^. embraced in the legislation of 1850, but was 
supremely a measure of adjustment, settlement, harmony, 
and peace ; that in this respect it would have the magic 
povrer of the sage who stretched his body across the frightful 
chasm that interposed against the progress of the Oriental 
gods, and that we, like them, should behold the ab^-ss close 
up, presenting a beautiful valley, enchanting and lovely. 
And yet, years have passed, and we have not peace : the 
angry contlict has not only tenure in this Hall of the nation's 
Representatives, but it rages with unabated violence upon 
the plains of Kansas ; and the allies of the combatants upon 
that bloody field fill with civil dissension, arising from 
cause of quarrel common to the whole people, the entire 
circuit of our land. 

I was one of those who believed the measure fraught with 
all the mischief which has flowed from it, and declared vay 
convictions from my place in the Thirty-third Congress, that 
it was "the true intent and meaning" of that act to carry 
Slavery not only to Kansas, but to open the door for its in- 
troduction into all the other territory of the United States. 
How far subsequent events have verified this view, let the 
flame of civil war and the martyr-blood crying from the 
ground once dedicated to Freedom, and shed in defence 



of its birthright, the barbarous doctrine of the Dred Scott 
decision, the servility to slave extension by the President, 
and the tyranny of usurped power in Kansas, answer. 

So rapid, so startling, and so unblushing, have been these 
assaults upon Freedom, that some who joined in the attack 
are now seen rallying with patriotic zeal upon the outposts, 
for its preservation and defence. I hope the succor is so 
timely and powerful, that the calamity with which our coun- 
try is threatened may be averted. 

The present crisis, whatever may be the result, will be 
referred to hereafter as one of the greatest magnitude that 
could 2?ossibIi/ have arisen in the Republic. It is not merely 
a struggle of the slave power for the extension and per- 
petuation of Negro Slavery, but for dominion, with pre- 
meditated determination to array one section of the Con- 
federacy against the other in unmitigable hostility — a con- 
test which involves the principles of our Government, the 
integrity of the Union, and the undespoiled sacredness of 
the Constitution. 

Underlying this Slavery question, the assumption of its 
advocates that the Congress cannot o?' shall not determine 
upon matters needful and proper for the government of 
the Territories stands forth prominently — false in theory 
and untrue in fact, tested by the light of constitutional his- 
tory. Our fathers wisely understood that slave labor and 
free labor could not flourish side by side upon the same 
soil — that they were antagonistic. Hence they adopted a 
line of separation ; and, while condemning the former as re- 
pugnant to the spirit of Liberty, and an invasion of the 
rights of man, made provision, as it was then hoped, for its 
gradual circumscription and extinguishment. 

Through the legislation culminating in the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, this principle, solemnly inaugurated 
by our fathers, was overthrown, and these two elements of 
labor and settlement were invited to an encounter upon the 
same soil — elements so opposed, that their contact was 
strife, bloodshed, recession of one or the other, or extinc- 
tion of one or the other. This you have witnessed in all 
its fearful horror, running through four years of eventful 
and mournful history. The chilled blood of patriotism 
calls for the remedy. How and when are you to find it ? 
Our early statesmen clearly noted the necessary prescrip- 
tion, and even at the threshold of the Constitution defined 



the boundaries of Slavery, by saying that Freedom should 
have what Slavery then had not. And I may safely allege, 
that the effort to produce a Constitution was imperilled in 
the Convention of its framers, and was only rescued and 
brought forth, clothed with the garments of Liberty, after 
this decree of Freedom had been made for the Territories 
by the Congress of the Confederation, then in session in the 
city of Xew York. 

In 1820 this principle was reaffirmed, notwithstanding 
Slavery had, from 1803 up to this period, insidiousl}^ ex- 
tended itself over large fields of the Louisiana purchase, 
while the people of the free States were in the quiet of 
repose upon this question, or were engaged in the conflict 
of arms w^ith a foreign Power. I say the principle was then 
reaffirmed ; and the only remedy, in my judgment, for the 
present alarming condition of affairs, is to return to this 
principle, decreeing for all the Territories Freedom now, 
Freedom forever. 

I need not trace arguments in support of its constitu- 
tional authority : it is sufficient to remark that the very 
proposition, separate and distinct from others in relation 
to territor}', was submitted to the Committee on Details 
in the Constitutional Convention, by Mr. Madison, but was 
supplanted by the general pro|)osition of Gouverneur Mor- 
ris, that the Congress have power to make all needful rules, 
&c., embracing, as was supposed, the whole ground in re- 
lation to Territories. Even if this was otherwise, (which 
I do not concede,) the power under the Constitution to ac- 
quire territory involves a corresponding power to govern, 
and the duty to govern in such a manner as would conduce 
in the greatest degree to the welfare and happiness of the 
people — the decision in the Dred Scott case to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

But, to return : I said it was the design of this repu- 
diation and abrogation scheme to extend the dominion 
of Human Slavery. I do not say that all who participated, 
or were known as supporters, had such a purpose in view ; 
but that the slave power, which mainly controls and directs 
a large party in this country — now being made less through 
its monstrous and revolting exactions — did then and do 
now, is clear to my mind. It was not in defence of an 
abstract principle, as then insisted, about which they did 
not then and do not now agree. No, sir, the hazard to 



6 

the peace of the country and the permanence of pohtical 
organization was too great for such cause. The purpose is 
ingeniously set forth in the following article in the New 
Orleans Delta, a leading advocate of the election of Mr. 
Buchanan : 

"We have wanted Kansas for the South, and have con- 
' trihuted men and money to the object of securing it. So 
' far, we have failed. It is true, the Constitution of that 
' Territory is not decided, and it is possible that it may 
' admit of Slavery ; and if so, a step will have been gained. 
' For if, under such a Constitution, the Territory be admit- 
' ted as a State, it will give two Senators to the South, 
' and will hold the door still open for the admission of 
' slaves into that country. '=' "' '•' 

"The foreign slave trade, therefore, will add directly to 
' the population of the South ; it will give a wider basis to 

* Slavery, and thus add indirectly to the population of the 
' South. Ten thousand slaves would take Kansas, with her 
' seventy thousand people ; ten thousand more would take 
' another State in Texas ; ten thousand more, a State in 
' New Mexico ; ten thousand more, a State in Lower Cali- 
' fornia : while one or two thousand more would embrace 
' the States of Delaware, Maryland, TTestern Virginia, and 
' Missouri, to the firmest possible fidelity to the peculiar 

* features of the South. Under the influence 'of such a 
' measure, therefore, there can be no question as to the 
' ultimate preponderance of political power between the 
' sections. And the foreign slave trade is the certain road 
' to power for the South, and the only road to power within 
' the Union." 

Did time and investigation permit, I might multiply 
extracts from their journals, and the sayings of their lead- 
ing men, in support of my d(^claration. But the tragic 
scenes of fraud, usurpation, and tyranny, in Kansas, are 
vivid with proof. If not for this, why was the Territorial 
Government usurped by invasion, violence, and fraud, at 
the first legislative election in March, 1855 ; and vrhy did 
the Grovernment thus usurped become the instrument of 
oppression, iniquit}^ and wrong, such as slaves only could 
be expected to endure? Why were test oaths imposed, 
and laws framed to facilitate and give license to fraud and 
violence? For what other reason have men been chased 
from the soil of Kansas, incarcerated in prisons, assassi- 



natecl by day, murdered by niglit, and their property 
pillaged, destroyed, or confiscated, under the strong arm of 
the slave power, made stronger by the criminal support 
of the Federal authority ? Man has fled from man as from 
the savage beasts of that frontier region, and the rights of 
the many have been wrested from them by the strong arm 
of invasion and usurpation — and for what? Because, bat- 
tling for the rights of man ; for breathing out the inspira- 
tion of an education in the pure air of Freedom ; for sus- 
taining the princiiiles evolved from the Constitution — ay, 
for all this, and to plant upon the ruins and in the v/aste, 
trackless by freemen, the institution of Human Bondage. 
They had no apology to be found in the Constitution or 
in precedent ; none, sir, in patriotism, in justice, or in 
humanit3^ They arrayed themselves against all these, 
and volunteered to become the instruments of aggression 
against the long-conceded rights and vital interests of the 
freemen of this country. They prostituted themselves to 
the promotion of the schemes of Slaver}^, pointing to the 
Territory which had been surrendered, and seizing it from 
the possession of those to whom it had been given over 
by the terms of formal compact, and for a consideration 
which the slave power had received in full. This soil was 
the heritage of free labor — for the men who go forth, at 
the call of their country, to uphold its standard and vindi- 
cate its honor ; the pioneer of civilization and settlement, 
who goes out to contest for the supremacy with the wild 
beast and the savage, and prepare it as the home of civili- 
zation and the heart c empire. 

You propose now to force upon this people a Constitu- 
tion agahist their will — a Constitution with Slavery — with 
the poor chance of power to change, short of revolution. 
It is obnoxious to them. They have abead}^ destroyed it 
by an emphatic popular verdict. It truly has no legal 
life — it has no vitality. Congress cannot galvanize it into 
healthful being ; it is be3^ond the skillful mendicity of the 
Executive, with all his unfairly-exercised power to give it 
peaceful reign. The people say they will not have it. 
They mean what they say ; and they will have the S3'mpa- 
thy and aid of three-fourths of the people of this Confed- 
eracy in resisting so foul an oppression. Will Congress 
attempt to force it upon them ? The responsibility is 
great ; and it seems to me that the people of the Xorth 



8 

will hold their agents, who mock at their entreaty, to a 
strict and fearful account. 

You are told by the organ of the Administration in this 
city, that nearly all the nationalities of the Republic have 
disappeared, one by one. The great religious denomina- 
tions and religious eleemosynary and charitable societies, 
which once flourished under national organizations, and 
bound our people together in bonds more endearing, if less 
strong, than a common Constitution, common laws, and 
common institutions, a common language and history, have 
almost all been sundered in twain. Why is this? Is it not 
because the aggressions of the slave power are at war with 
the pure spirit of Christianit}^, and its civilizing and eleva- 
ting tendencies? You have driven them off, and your line 
of policy will drive off and unite the great body of the 
American people against you. 

Our forbearance has been remarkable in times past. It 
is within the recollection of gentlemen present, how the 
people, after being outraged and excited over the legisla- 
tion of 1850, laid down to quiet and repose, upon the 
solemn assurances of/>eacemade in 1852, at Baltimore and 
throughout the country ; and yet the promise turned to 
ashes upon the lips of those who made it, and the people 
awoke as from a dream, just in time to see their cherished 
hopes swallowed up in wanton agitation and renewed 
aggression — like the "Arabian shepherd, who, in wander- 
ing into the wilderness, caught a glimpse of the gardens of 
Iram, and then lost them again forever." Mr. Chairman, I 
hope the people have not forever lost the peace and the 
quiet our fathers sought to establish, and which is the just 
fruit of free institutions. 

Will it not be said, however, not only by the North, but 
by all good people throughout the civilized world, that by 
consummating this act the responsible parties were madly 
intent on extending the empire of Slavery, at whatever 
hazard to the peace of the country ; that they forged the 
weapons of fratricidal strife and civil war; and in this light 
hold them accountable for every drop of blood that is shed 
in the clash that may quickly follow ? Sir, I should deeply 
lament a renewal of strife in Kansas. I am for peace, not 
war ; yet I would not hav(^ peace purchased at the ex- 
pense of the rights of man and the liberties of my country. 
Such peace — the peace of Hungary, powerless and bleeding 



9 

under the heel of Austrian despotism — is not the peace for 
me, or those I represent. 

Gentlemen on the other side of the House tell us that if 
the Lecompton Constitution is not endorsed by Congress, 
the Union will be dissolved. As much as I love the Union, 
and cherish its hallowed recollections ; as much as I rever- 
ence the memory of its founders, and their living and last 
wish for its perpetuation ; as much as I hope from its mis- 
sion in the field of Liberty — I would try the experiment, if 
I had the power, to defeat this usurpation, this cheat, this 
fraud upon the rights of the people of Kansas. But, sir, I 
have no fear of dissolution from this cause. I scarcely be- 
lieve there are fifty thousand men in all the South that 
would rally under the black standard of Dissolution. The 
Union is not to be dissolved. I fear vastly more in the 
consummation of this great wrong — commotion, strife, and 
bloodshed — and a reproach, if not a blot, upon the great 
experiment of self-government. 

To avert this, I appeal to gentlemen upon this floor. I 
expect nothing from him who asserts that Kansas is as 
much a slave State to-day as Georgia or South Carolina. 
The language of the President's message before us gives us 
to expect from him no libation to Liberty for those who 
bleed in her cause. 

" You may as well go stand upon the beach, 
And bid the main flood bate his usual height; 
You may as well use question with the wolf, 
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb ; 
You may as well forbid the mountain pines 
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise, 
When they are fretted with the gusta of heaven," 

as to expect, from one thus committed, any abatement of 
his purposes. I know very well that many in the Xorth, 
who gave Mr. Buchanan their support, will witness with 
pain this subversion of expectation and promise, and turn 
away with indignation and disgust. 

The career of many great men furnishes painful evi- 
dence of an inglorious termination. Caesar was assassi- 
nated for attempting to overthrov/ the liberties of Rome ; 
Brutus fell on his sword, when unable to attain power by 
its means ; and Bonaparte, not content with binding his 
temples with the chaplets wrenched from the many thrones 
of Europe, sought to climb still higher the heights of un- 
chastened ambition, and thus cast himself, a lonely, for- 
saken exile, upon a sea-begirt and degolate island. 



10 

Xor is the history of our own country wanting in mem- 
orable examples of men of supposed incorruptiljle states- 
manship, wrecking their own fame, and disappointing the 
hopes of a confiding people ; and from causes, if possible, 
less justifiable than has worked the overthrow of heroes and 
statesmen of ancient and modern times, in countries beyond 
the sea. There is a power in our midst, which — in the 
graphic description of the Senator from Massachusetts, who 
is unable through its violence to now occupy his seat — may 
be likened to the black magnetic mountain upon the face of 
the deep, mentioned in the Arabian story, which drew, one 
by one, the strong iron bolts of the stately ship, until she 
fell, a disjointed wreck. So with this. The principles of 
earher years instilled in the land of Freedom, with too many 
of our public men, as they approach this power, one by 
one are withdrawn, until they fall a disjointed wreck. And 
it would seem that this power was grateful for no service, 
except as the basis of increased exactions, and is reckless 
of the number or standing of the victims. 

Xot only this, sir, but the method of accomplishing these 
purposes is full of warning and shame. To the doubting 
and timid, hope of reward is promised, while the courageous 
and bold are cast off at pleasure. In proof of the latter, I 
need but call the attention of gentlemen to the action of 
the late Cincinnati Democratic National Convention,, in se- 
lecting for its standard-bearer one who had been in no 
sense an advocate and defender of the great doctrine for 
which others had perilled so much ; and, in support of the 
former allegation, I subjoin from the Washington Ujiioti, 
the organ of President Pierce's administration, the follow- 
ing article, which made its appearance pending the struggle 
upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and which is in substance 
repeated in a late number of the same paper, upon the eve 
of this great contest upon the Lecompton Constitution, and 
at a time when a few more votes seem as important to the 
success of this measure, as they were deemed then important 
to the success of that : 

"If a Democratic member of Congress is led by his 
' judgment and his conscience to vote for the bill, (as we 
' hope all Democrats will be led to do,) and he returns to 
' his constituents to encounter the clamor of Whigs and 
' Abolitionists, together with disaffected men of his own 
* party, no sensible man (at least no man who understands 



11 

' and appreciates the character of the Executive) will be- 
' lieve that the President will allow such factious men to 
' \Yie\d public patro?iage to overthrow him." 

If the promise was sacredly kept, others will defend its 
good faith. 

Thus it is, sir, that w^e have come to have two parties in 
this countr}^, with interests, feehngs, and purposes, dia- 
metrically opposed — I might say almost geographically 
divided — the one now w^ielding the power of the Govern- 
ment for the extension and perpetuation of Slavery, whether 
this be accomplished by the support of the dogma (as ap- 
plied) of Popular Sovereignty, or in defiance of it ; whether 
with regard to the rights of the States and the security and 
welfare of the people of the Territories, or in utter vio- 
lation thereof, with the monstrous intention of carrying 
Slavery with the marching banner of our country's expanse. 
The other, (the Repubhcan party,) committed to the sup- 
port of Freedom, and sworn to its defence, in whatever 
form and from whatever quarter attacked. The first, sir, 
are subject to the charge of guilty complicity in the atroci- 
ties that fill ever}^ page of the history of Kansas, and are 
now engaged, in violation of all rules known to self-gov- 
ernment, and in utter disregard of the usages and rights 
of civilized people, in forcing a Constitution with the per- 
petual imposition of Slavery upon an unwilling community. 

But, sir, the issue has wider range — this is only the the- 
atre of its present rioting, its immediate, pressing aspect. 
Beyond this, 1 have just reason to charge not only upon 
this party the purpose of overriding all the Anti-Slavery 
covenants of the people, and all the Anti-Slavery guaran- 
tees of the Constitution ; to break down and crush out the 
Anti-Slavery sentiment of the North, and to plant Slavery 
in the Territories ; but to reopen the foreign slave trade, 
and ultimately to carry Slavery into the States where it is 
not, in defiance of the powers of Congress or of the States 
to prevent it. The object of the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise is proclaimed by one of its supporters to have 
been — 

"To put the Slavery question upon some common 

* ground, where a party could be rallied strong enough to 

* administer the Government justly upon other than purely 
' sectional ideas ; to remove the ban under which the 
' domestic institutions of the South had been placed by 



12 

' Federal legislatioD ; " and, "although not all the South 

* was entitled to, it was a great advance upon the old order 
' of things, because it removed an unjust and odious dis- 

* crimination as-ainst her domestic institutions from the 
' statute-book — a moral triumph which was of vast import- 
' ance to the South, and to the institution of Slavery itself," 

The present purposes of the slave power are frankty dis- 
closed in the following article, which appeared in the Uniori 
of the 17th of J^ovember last : 

" The Constitution declares that ' the citizens of each 
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States.' Every citizen of one 
State coming into another State has, therefore, a right to 
the protection of his person, and that property which 
is recognised as such by the Constitution of the United 
States, any law of a State to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. So far from any State having a right to deprive him 
of this property, it is its bounden duty to protect him in 
its possession. 

"If these views are correct — and we believe it would 
be difficult to invalidate them — it follows that all State 
laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit a citi- 
zen of one State from settling in another, and bringing 
his slave property with him, and most especiall}^ declaring 
it forfeited, are direct violations of the original intention 
of a Government which, as before stated, is the protection 
of person and property, and of the Constitution of the 
United States, which recognises property in slaves, and 
declares that ' the citizens of each State shall be entitled 
to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the 
several States,' among the most essential of which is the 
protection of person and property." 

And this but corroborates the evidence daily swarming 
around us, of the design of this power to subjugate the 
country to the sway of African barbarism. Not only shall 
Slavery be carried to the Territories, under the protecting 
folds of the Constitution ; that it shall be protected there 
by the power of the Federal Government ; but that no 
power, not even the Congress nor the people of the Ter- 
ritories, can prevent or remove it, and not even State 
soveic nty is a barrier to the blighting curse. 

To this have we come ; and do you, sir, and gentlemen, 
think that the people of the North will submit ? You 



^ 13 

might as well expect the hand, with fiendish malevolence, 
to pluck from the body all that is A'ital and lovely — as well, 
I was about to say, expect Heaven to cast oIT the redeem- 
ed, and give place to the damned. 

To this, sir. have the Democracy come — that party so 
successful in its achievements, under a Jefferson and a 
Jackson, that its trophies embellish the political history 
of our country. But, sir, it is not the Democracy of past 
days — it is the Administration Democracy, the Democracy 
of the slave power, or whatever you please to call it — 
that, it ivas not. True Democracy — the Democracy of 
earlier and better days — would not engage in ravaging the 
sacred interests of Freedom. 

The doctrine of the Supreme Court, that Slavery is 
above all laws, all Constitutions, and all power to dislodge 
it, and that black men have no rights that white men are 
bound to respect, is to be, it is feared, if it is not already, 
made their basis of action and the rule of faith. And in 
paving the way, gentlemen are impelled to resort, with im- 
potent sophistry, in defence of this institution they thus 
seek to extend, and to invest with political umpirage 
over a free people, to the superseded practices of early 
Bible record, forgetting the Divine injunction, the duration 
of which is as the universe of God, saying that " whatso- 
ever ye would that men should do to 3'OU, do ye even so 
to them." The Bible teaches the heaven-born equality of 
man, the great fundamental principles of justice and mo- 
rality that underlie all law, that dictate the formation of 
the jurisprudence of any great and just nation ; and upon 
this basis our people and all other peojile must plant 
themselves, that hope and expect to advance the cause of 
right, and elevate the character and condition of man. 

Suppose our land with no human being upon its wide- 
extended surface, and suddenly thereon should arise twen- 
ty-five million of blacks and three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand of white men, the black men possessing, as they would, 
the physical power to make the others their bondmen — I 
suppose the scriptural argument of gentlemen would not 
be deemed pertinent, for I believe their doctrine is found- 
ed on the right of the stronger to subject and enslave the 
weaker, rather than upon the alleged inferiority of the 
black race, or a special designation of omnipotent law, that 
the black man in our midst is doomed to perpetual bondage. 



14 

I do not rise, however, to discuss the merits of Slavery 
in the abstract, nor its suitableness or adaptation to the 
local communities where it exists by peaceably-enacted 
law, but to speak of it in another character, a different field, 
where it affects us as a political community, our welfare 
and happiness, the durability of our institutions ; whether 
these cherished hopes and privileges of our people shall be 
brief and volatile, the charm of a day, or whether they 
shall remain firm in the hearts and political action of this 
great people for all time to come. 

I need not speak of the invidious discrimination that 
this power makes to favor its purposes in nearly every 
measure of general legislation and of executive action ; of 
the appointment to offices of power and trust of no person 
under your Grovernment who is not orthodox upon the ques- 
tion of Slavery ; of the large appropriations made for objects 
of doubtful expediency in the South, while the same class 
North are rejected wholly or supported meagerly — as in- 
stanced in the improvement of Cape Fear river, while, at 
the same time, an appropriation for St. Clair flats w^as 
rejected — the latter having more tonnage and shipping 
pass its channels and ways in a year than the former in a 
generation of men ; and the expenditure at Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, of a quarter of a million dollars for a custom-house, 
with comparatively little commerce, while the port of Buf- 
falo, with more than quadruple the commerce, {See Com. 
and Nav. Rep., 1857,) is turned away with about an equal 
sum for like purposes. Yes, sir, the latter, with a foreign 
and home shipping and tonnage that the former, how- 
ever much she may strive to emulate, will never be likely 
to attain. These are instances ; the investigation might be 
pursued, exhibiting equal intolerance in politics and unfair- 
ness of governmental protection. 

But it is not for this we now complain ; it is in behalf of 
order, justice, and freedom. We appeal to the love of 
right and the patriotism of our opponents, and ask them to 
join us in maintaining those principles which are the law 
of national virtue and peace, and the basis of liberty. In 
vain do we arrange in this way or that way for the financial 
depletion of the Treasury ; that we adopt this or that mode 
of foreign policy ; that we build ships of war sufficient to 
repel upon the ocean the combined naval armament of the 
world, or multiply our military forces upon land garrisoned 



15. 

at every point of accessible attack ; while we misunderstand. 
or, if understood, misapply, the great principles of republi- 
can freedom. 

All other questions sink into insignificance beside the 
paramount question of human rights and the nnalienable 
political equality of man, the substratum upon which the 
whole fabric of American independence was reared. Dis- 
turb the superstructure, and the edifice is imperilled ; re- 
move it, and the whole of its beautiful ^proportions, reared 
by the patriotism and cemented by the blood of our fathers, 
will fall a shapeless ruin. 

If you resist this appeal, made by the people of Kansas 
and the popular heart of the North, through their presses, 
their immense assemblages, and their representatives in 
Congress, and its thousand other ways, too plain to be 
misunderstood, may not this people, with whom you have 
broken the bond of common humanity and brotherhood, and 
again trampled under foot the honor and justice they had a 
right to expect at your hands, demand redress ? They will 
say, they now say, that that "one blood," of which God 
has created all the people that dwell upon the face of the 
earth, demands an audience at the court of power, where 
they may not plead as heretofore, but declare, in the name 
of the Congress and the people, that no more soil shall be 
given over to Slavery ; that the Government shall be ad- 
ministered so as to secure the ends of liberty and justice, 
instead of despotism and wrong. Here they will take their 
stand, and while aiming with steady purpose to eflect these 
objects with peaceful means, within constitutional limits, 
yet, should these fail, effect them they will. They propose 
no innovation upon the established policy of the Govern- 
ment ; they only insist upon following in the path illumined 
by Jefferson and Madison, and their compeers, in the ear- 
lier and better days of the Republic ; they claim that this 
Government shall be marched in the forefront of CiviUza- 
tion and Christianity, like the pillar of cloud by day and 
fire by night, before the Israelites, leading our people to 
prosperity, greatness, and peace. This is the law of Amer- 
ican duty ; it was taught by our Pilgrim Fathers, enjoined 
by the heroes of the Revolution, and the immortal authors 
of our independence and constitutional Union; it is com- 
manded by the noblest system of civil and religious free- 
dom that man has ever founded, by the voice of patriot- 
ism and the genius of Liberty. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

■■1 

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